The Apple TV+ series was renewed for season 2 Friday.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from the season 1 finale ofPachinko.
The season 1 finale ofPachinkoconcludes at a port in Osaka in 1938.
Minha Kim and Steve Sanghyun Noh in ‘Pachinko’.Robert Falconer/Apple TV +
A young Sunja (Minha Kim) wheels two large barrels of kimchi through a bustling open air market.
She contently gazes at the sky one last time before she succumbs to AIDS.
The scenes, it seems, speak to the contrasting nature of life and death.
Youn Yuh-Jung as older Sunja ‘Pachinko’.Media Res/Blue Marble Pictures/Apple TV+
At the port, young Sunja takes her future into her own hands.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What drew you to adapt Min Jin Lee’s novel for TV?
SOO HUGH: I’m always drawn to the challenge of what we have not seen before.
Lee Minho and Jae Jun Park on ‘Pachinko’.Robert Falconer/Apple TV+
I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again.
But also, what’s a story worth telling?
There’s so much media out there.
There’s so many TV shows.
I don’t want to just add noise for the sake of adding noise.
I can’t bleed over something that I don’t care about.
What were some of the challenges of bringing it to the screen?
There’s been quite a few along the way.
I mean, how do you first do justice to a book like that?
That was foremost the biggest challenge.
And then second, the language component.
Not only in the translation of the scripts, but also in the performance.
And then in post-production, that was a challenge.
We shot during COVID.
We shot in multiple countries.
We shot with an enormous cast and crew.
In each of those challenge buckets, I feel like we really turned them into strengths eventually.
You’re bringing complex characters to the screen.
Was the casting process difficult, in terms of finding Sunjas across three different generations, etc?
Why did I write that?"
Rice comes off as pivotal toPachinko.
Am I reading too much into the rice?
No, I think you absolutely got it.
Rice is a huge metaphor in this show.
When Koreans say, “Do you want to eat?
Have you eaten rice?
“, that is a staple, and I was shocked when we were digging into it.
We did so much food research on this show.
And it’s a story of colonization.
I’m sure there were many ways to conclude this season.
How did you land on this?
That, for me, was a no-brainer.
That came very quickly.
So, a launching off point.
And I wanted to leave the first season with audiences feeling that this young woman is indomitable.
And post-credits, the finale features real-life accounts of Korean women who lived in Japan during that time.
And I wanted to celebrate these women’s faces.
You look at their beautiful, beautiful faces and see all of the years that they’ve lived through.
It’s honestly a tribute to them.
That’s what this is.
We deserve to hear their voice.
Yeah, the series is fiction, but draws on historical events.
Didyour own family historyshape how you approached adapting the series?
It is a form of therapy and healing to be able to talk about that.
This show, for me personally, has really allowed that healing to happen.
Is this something you’ll be watching with your family?
What do you think their reactions will be?
So my mom has been very supportive of my career, but she’s always been a little…
I told her I was doingPachinkoand sent her the book to read in Korean.
What’s happening today?
Did this actress nail this?”
Her interest in this show is of a different caliber.
I think she’s just so proud that her people’s story is coming to life.
The finale was open-ended; was this a deliberate set up for season 2?
It’s meant to be an ongoing series, yeah.
It hasn’t been greenlit, but it’s always been thought of as an ongoing series.
Let’s say it’s greenlit.
What would you be most excited to explore?
I love these characters so much and there’s so much story to tell.
Right now my brain is so into season 1, because it’s been this four-year journey.
It’s just this amazing moment of celebrating with the cast and crew, what they’ve accomplished.
So I haven’t even put my brain into that yet.
What do you hope audiences take away from the series?
I feel like I want two things: I want them to feel something earned.
I don’t want to play on cheap emotions.
If they laugh, I want that laugh to be earned because our characters truly reached into their bellies.
If they cry, I want those tears to be earned because our characters truly moved them.
So I really want them to feel something in this.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The first season ofPachinkois now streaming on Apple TV+.
